Metro 2033

I've read a lot of books recently that have not been up to par. This one lands squarely in that category. I don't even know where to begin. The premise drew me in instantly - so much could have been done with such a strong premise! Instead, what I read was a janky story about an idiot at the end of days. Allow me to elaborate, I spent a long time brewing this review.

The main character, Artyom, is a complete automaton. A slave to the plot in every way, he exists only to serve the storyline and never to drive it. He is entirely characterless and entirely pointless. Devoid of a single characteristic whatsoever, excrutiatingly boring, I cannot stress enough how poorly written he is, and this becomes a pattern with every other character.

It's hard to rank the awful things about this book, because at varying points they all bothered me equally in turn, but the lack of female characters in the book is bizarre enough to merit second place. Are you telling me that this man has schelpped through the entire metro system and failed to encounter a SINGLE woman other than a (1) prostitute that he then considers paying for? The only three lines of dialogue spoken by a woman in the entire 450 page sinkhole of a book are spoken by a comrade's wife chiding her child and then by one trying to hock her child. Absolute piss, Dmitry. Get a grip.

Sexism aside, we also have some abhorrent descriptions of some races in this book as well - hardly a surprise given the track record.

The structure is true to Russian style - enormous walls of text, even the rare dialogue threatens to turn into a chapter-long philosophical monologue and you are lucky when it doesn't. Some of the chapters are used as a thinly veiled opportunity for the author to proselytise to the reader.

Every single side character is a plot device contrived to deliver our passive idiot of a main character to his next destination safely, and then to die immediately after while the moron lives. Each one of these characters would have been a better candidate for the mission our hero is on than he is.

Now for the plot.

Hunter comes to Artyom's home station and asks him to risk his safety and life to get a message to a far flung station. Our main immediately agrees and sets off because he is an automaton. Then, in a long series of episodes that are not linked in any way save by coming one after the other chronologically, the main character goes through lots of trials and tribulations that do not lead to any personal development. By the time we reach the end of the book (a mere few weeks in book time), the trip that took him days in the outset now takes him an hour or so going back the way, and the dangers along that same path are conveniently gone.

The reason I gave it that half star is that the premise is great, and the ending was actually surprisingly good. The rant is over but I could throttle the author.